Free Hostage by Chris Bradford Page B

her disadvantage.
    Before Steve could answer, Charley rolled
her chair over Amir’s toes. He squealed in pain. She punched him in the stomach
and he doubled over. Then she grabbed his head and twisted him to the ground.
    ‘Very easily,’ replied Charley,
as Amir lay bowed and defeated at her feet.

Connor looked into the sports shop window on
the second floor of Cardiff’s Queens Arcade. He barely noticed the display of Nike
trainers on sale. Instead, his eyes were focused on the reflection in the glass. A
steady stream of people was passing behind him. Most, if not all, were innocent
shoppers. But among that Saturday crowd
someone
was following him. He
didn’t know who yet, but he was determined to find out.
    Walking on, Connor headed down the escalator
to the ground level of the shopping centre. He crossed the polished tiled floor and
stopped beside the information sign. Pretending to be lost, he examined the map, then
casually glanced around. As his eyes swept the atrium, he scanned the faces of the
people descending the escalator: a blonde-haired woman in a green jacket … a
harassed-looking mother clasping her toddler’s hand … two teenage girls plastered
with eyeliner and lipstick … a man on his mobile phone –
    Hadn’t he seen that face before?
    The square jaw. The broad nose. The deep-set
eyes.Although Connor couldn’t be certain, he thought he’d
noticed the man earlier while browsing in the video-game store.
    Connor decided not to hang around. He headed
along the central concourse towards the south exit. All the while he kept his eye on
reflections in the plate-glass windows. Twice he caught glimpses of the square-jawed
man. But was the man actually following him or just innocently leaving by the same
route?
    To test his hunch, Connor stopped outside a
fashion store. After a few paces, the man paused at a newsagent’s and began
studying the papers. Connor felt his pulse quicken. This could be pure coincidence
still, but the man’s behaviour seemed increasingly suspicious. He was leafing
through the newspapers without really looking at them. At the same time he was mumbling
to himself –
or perhaps into a concealed radio?
    Connor now needed to prove beyond a doubt
that this individual was on his tail. But he didn’t want to alert the man that he
suspected anything. That would scare him off – and then Connor might never find out who
this person was or why he was following him. He glimpsed a gold stud in the man’s
right ear and made a mental note of this. Then he headed for the exit.
    When he reached the glass doors, he held
them open to let a lady with a buggy through, and took this opportunity to subtly check
behind.
    The concourse was busy with shoppers. But
the man was nowhere in sight.
    Maybe all this bodyguard training is
making me paranoid?
thought Connor.
    Stepping outside into the bright spring
sunshine, he turned right to weave between the hordes of people milling along Queen
Street. The air was filled with the shouts of street hawkers and the strumming of
buskers. A local bus roared by, sending up a cloud of diesel fumes.
    Connor glanced at the time on his mobile
phone. He had five minutes before he was due to meet the others. Heading along the road,
he couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was still being watched. Though he
realized that if anyone was following him now, it would be almost impossible to spot
them among the crowds. What he needed was a quieter, yet public, area to draw the
individual out into the open.
    Up ahead, a blue sign pointed towards a car
park. Perfect.
    Connor checked for traffic, then crossed the
road. As he reached the opposite kerb, he heard the blast of a car horn. Glancing over
his shoulder, he saw the square-jawed man had narrowly missed being run over. Although
Connor’s gaze was directly upon him, the man deliberately avoided eye contact by
staring at a blonde-haired lady in a red jacket and sunglasses standing at a bus stop.
But Connor wasn’t